On March 7 2018, CCI fined Jet Airways (India) Limited (‘Jet Airways’), Interglobe Aviation Limited (‘IndiGo’), SpiceJet Limited (‘SpiceJet’), Air India Limited (‘Air India’) and Go Airlines (India) Limited (‘Go Airlines’) (collectively ‘Airlines’) on the basis of an information filed by Express Industry Council of India (‘EICI’), alleging inter alia collusion on fixing of Fuel Surcharge (‘FSC’) rates for cargo transportation, and thereby contravening Section 3 of the Competition Act.[1] Though the DG found insufficient evidence to prove collusion, CCI noted that three of the named airlines (Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet) had acted in collusion in fixing FSC rates and collectively imposed a fine of about ₹ 55 crore (approx. US$ 8.25 million) on the three airlines. No penalty however, was imposed upon Air India as its conduct was not found to be in conjunction with the other airlines, or on Go Airlines, as it leased its cargo belly space to thirdly party vendors with no control on any part of commercial/ economic aspects of cargo operations done by vendors including imposition of FSC. The conduct on part of Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet was found to have resulted in directly determining the rates of air cargo transport and thereby to be in contravention of Section 3(1) read with Section 3(3)(a) of the Competition Act. Accordingly, penalties of ₹ 39.81 crore (approx. US$ 6 million), ₹ 9.45 crore (approx. US$ 1.4 million), and ₹ 5.1 crore (approx. US$ 0.8 million), were imposed upon Jet Airways, Indigo and Spice Jet respectively. Besides, a cease and desist order was also issued against the Airlines.While imposing penalties, CCI applied the principle of relevant turnover and the penalties were based on the revenue generated by the airlines from air cargo transport services only. Considering the financial position of the Airlines at the relevant time and noting that FSC constitutes about 20-30% of cargo revenue, a penalty was imposed by CCI at 3% of their average relevant turnover of the last three financial years.CCI denounced the Airlines for using FSC as a pricing tool which was essentially introduced to mitigate the fuel price volatility. The final order was passed by CCI pursuant to the directions issued by the erstwhile COMPAT remanding the matter back to CCI while setting aside the original order of CCI.[1] Case No.30 of 2013.